"Charley and I carry her through the mountain," Nahnya answered. "They are waiting back there. I will send the boys to help Charley carry her here." She raised her voice: "Jean Bateese!"
The old man hastened to them. Nahnya gave him an order in Cree. Continuing in English, she said:
"The doctor will stay with us to-night. He is our friend. Make everything for his comfort."
Her unaffected magnanimity, after he had so grievously injured her, touched Ralph to the quick, and covered him afresh with shame. "Nahnya, I'm so sorry!" he burst out impulsively.
She got up without answering, and walked down to the lake shore. Lifting one of the birch-bark canoes into the water, she got in, and without looking back headed her craft up the lake, paddling with her own grace and assurance.
"Where is she going?" asked Ralph jealously.
The old man spread out his palms deprecatingly. "I do not ask," he said. "She moch lak to go alone. She is not the same as us." Whenever Jean Bateese referred to Nahnya it was with the unquestioning air that an ancient Egyptian might have said: "Cleopatra wills it."
He led Ralph back to the fire. The three tepees stood in a row parallel with the lake shore. Between them were summer shelters of leaves, so that the women could do their household tasks out of doors. Their winter gear, sledges, furs, and snowshoes, was slung up on poles out of harm's way. There were racks for smoking meat and fish, and frames for tanning hides, all carefully disposed to be out of the way. The view from the little esplanade of grass in front was superb.
The two boys were standing near, rigid with astonishment and curiosity. They were a comely pair, sixteen or seventeen years old, with bold, handsome faces that became sullen with shyness at Ralph's approach. Each was naked to the waist and lean as a panther, with a coppery skin that shone in the sun, and muscles that crawled subtly beneath as if endowed with separate life. They wore buckskin trousers, and moccasins embroidered with dyed porcupine quills; their inky hair grew to their shoulders, and each wore a thong about his forehead to confine it.
Here the resemblance ended. He who stood a foot in advance was the taller. He had thin features and an aquiline glance. In the band around his head, unconsciously true to his type, he had stuck an eagle's feather.